Press Release:
PCA meets Minister Sargent
Sunday, 2 September 2007.

The Portmarnock Community Association met Minister Trevor Sargent at the
Portmarnock Golf Links Hotel to discuss next steps in the PCA's campaign against the unsustainable expansion of Dublin Airport in the light of the recent decisions by An Bord Pleanála to approve planning permission for the new parallel runway and Terminal 2.

PCA-UPROAR welcomed Minister Sargent's commitment to continue his support for UPROAR's campaign. In particular he agreed to support their demand that due process be followed as regards the full "Value for Money" evaluation of these projects before a decision to proceed with their construction is taken by the government as the DAA's shareholder. Department of Finance Value for Money appraisal guidelines specifically require that following planning permission the earlier cost benefit analysis must be revisited to ensure that planning conditions imposed do not alter a previously positive result. In this case, as no previous cost benefit analysis exists, in spite of the projects costing vastly more than the €30 million ceiling for such an analysis, it means a full analysis, incorporating some 60 planning conditions imposed by ABP, must now be carried out.

Similarly, such an analysis is expressly required under the new NDP of which these projects form a part. Further, the agreed Programme for Government 2007 reiterates those Value for Money guidelines and further requires that transport projects be subjected to a multi-criteria analysis in which environmental factors are taken into account. EU guidelines stipulate that such a multi-criteria analysis must be integrated with the cost benefit analysis in which environmental impacts are costed, as far as possible. In this regard Minister Sargent said the Green Party in government would be vigilant to see that environmental costs, including the costs generated by the proposed developments in global warming terms, will be fully analysed. This had been made technically possible by the Stern Review on "The Economics of Climate Change" and was imperative in the light of that report's findings.

Minister Sargent said that our National Spatial Strategy required that growth be rebalanced in favour of the West and that Dublin Airport's expansion plans conflict with the objective of balanced regional development policy as set out in NSS. Minister Sargent also said he was struck by the argument that Dublin Airport's unsustainable development may be driven by a hidden subsidy due to the trivial €20 million value put on all of the airport's 2,500 acres and then reflected in the airport's passenger charge that is very low by European standards. He agreed that this may well explain why other airports such as Shannon are facing an uphill struggle to compete with a Dublin Airport, which is planned to expand to handle 60 million passengers per annum.

Minister Sargent agreed, that as our local T.D., he would be pursuing the matter on our behalf with Government cabinet ministers, in particular with Green party ministers, John Gormley and Eamon Ryan. He will be urging them to insist that the shareholder's decision on these projects be taken at cabinet level and that it be fully informed by the various studies that must now be carried out.

He will further seek to arrange meetings between the PCA and Transport Minister Noel Dempsey and Finance Minister Brian Cowen to discuss the matter.